The Hero of Santiago knew himself well enough to acknowledge that he had fallen half in love with her. But he was completely unaware that the beautiful Miss Morgan was using him for cover as she tracked the head-bowing, hat-tipping passage through the crowd of an elegantly dressed Japanese.
“Why,” she asked Falconer, filling time, “is the shipbuilder called New York Ship when it’s in Camden, New Jersey?”
“That confuses everyone,” Falconer explained with his warmest smile and a devilish glint in his eye. “Originally, Mr. Morse intended to build his yard on Staten Island, but Camden offered better rail facilities and access to Philadelphia’s experienced shipyard workers. Why are you smiling that way, Miss Morgan?”
She said, “The way you’re looking at me, it’s a good thing that Isaac is nearby and armed.”
“Well, he ought to be,” Falconer retorted gruffly. “Anyway, Camden, New Jersey, has the most modern shipyard in the world. When it comes to building dreadnoughts, it is second only to our most important facility at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.”
“And why is that, Captain?” Her quarry was drawing near.
“They embrace a thoroughly modern system. Major parts are prefabricated. Overhead cranes move them around the yard as easily as you’d assemble the ingredients to bake a cake. These sheds cover the ways so bad weather doesn’t delay production.”
“They remind me of the glass studios we use to film indoors, though ours are much smaller.”
“Fittings that used to be mounted after launch are applied in the comfort of those covered ways. She’ll be launched with her guns already in place.”
“Fascinating.” The man she was watching had stopped to peer through a break in the scaffolding that revealed the ship’s long armor belt. “Captain Falconer? How many men will crew the Michigan?”
“Fifty officers. Eight hundred fifty enlisted.”
She uttered a thought so grim that it shadowed her face. “That is a terrible number of sailors in one small space if the worst happens and the ship sinks.”
“Modern warships are armored coffins,” Falconer answered far more bluntly than he would with a civilian, but their conversations last night had established an easy trust between them and left him in no doubt of her superior intelligence. “I saw Russians drown by the thousands fighting the Japs in the Tsushima Strait. Battleships went down in minutes. All but the spotters in the fighting tops and a few men on the bridge were trapped belowdecks.”
“Can I assume that our goal is to build warships that will sink slowly and give men time to get off?”
“The goal for battleships is to keep fighting. That means protecting men, machinery, and guns within a citadel of armor while keeping the ship afloat. The sailors who win stay alive.”
“So today is a happy day, launching such a modern ship.”
Captain Falconer glowered at Marion under his heavy eyebrows. “Between you and me, miss, thanks to Congress limiting her to 16,000 tons, Michigan has eight feet less freeboard aft then the old Connecticut. She’ll be wetter than a whale, and if she ever makes eighteen knots in heavy seas, I’ll eat my hat.”
“Obsolete before she is even launched?”
“Doomed to escort slow conveys. But if she ever tangles with a real dreadnought, it better be in calm waters. Hell!” he snorted. “We should anchor her in San Francisco Bay to greet the Japanese.”
A petite girl wearing a very expensive hat secured to her red hair with Taft-for-President “Possum Billy” hatpins stepped up. “Excuse me, Captain Falconer. I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I had a wonderful time at a picnic on your yacht.”
Falconer seized the hand that she had offered tentatively. “I remember you indeed, Miss Dee,” he grinned. “Had the sun not shone on our clambake, your smile would have made up for it. Marion, this young lady is Miss Katherine Dee. Katherine, say hello to my very good friend Marion Morgan.”
Katherine Dee’s big blue eyes got bigger. “Are you the moving-picture director?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yes, I am.”
“I love Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight! I’ve seen it four times already.”
“Well, thank you very much.”
“Do you ever act in your movies?”
Marion laughed. “Good Lord, no!”
“Why not?” Captain Falconer interrupted. “You’re a good-looking woman.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Marion said, casting a quick smile at Katherine Dee. “But good looks don’t necessary show up on film. The camera has its own standards. It prefers certain kinds of features.” Like Katherine Dee’s, she thought to herself. For some magical reason the lens and the light tended to favor Katherine’s type, with her petite figure, large head, and big eyes.
Almost as if she could read her mind, Katherine said, “Oh, I wish I could see a movie being made.”
Marion Morgan took a closer look at the girl. She seemed physically strong for one so petite. Strangely so. In fact, behind Katherine’s breathless, little-girl manner, Marion sensed something slightly peculiar. But didn’t the camera also often transform peculiarities into characteristics that charmed the movie audience? She was tempted to confirm whether this girl indeed had qualities the camera would love, and an invitation was on the tip of her tongue. But there was something about her that made Marion uncomfortable.
Beside her, Marion felt Lowell Falconer plumping up again as he did whenever he saw a pretty girl. The woman approaching was the tall brunette who had been making eyes at Isaac earlier.
Lowell stepped forward and extended his hand.
Marion thought that Dorothy Langner was even more striking than the descriptions she had heard. She thought of a term uttered by her long-widowed father now that he was finally stepping out in late middle age: “A looker.”
“Dorothy, I am so glad you came,” said Falconer. “Your father would be very proud to see you here.”
“I’m proud to see his guns. Already mounted. This is a splendid shipyard. You remember Ted Whitmark?”
“Of course,” said Falconer, shaking Whitmark’s hand. “I imagine you’ll be a busy fellow when the fleet replenishes at San Francisco. Dorothy, may I present Miss Marion Morgan?”
Marion was aware of being carefully measured as they traded hellos.
“And of course you know Katherine,” Falconer concluded the introductions.
“We came up together on the train,” said Whitmark. “I hired a private car.”
Marion said, “Excuse me, Captain Falconer, I see a gentleman Isaac asked me to meet. Nice to meet you, Miss Langner, Mr. Whitmark, Miss Dee.”
THE POUNDING OF THE WEDGES suddenly stopped. The ship was fully on her cradle. Isaac Bell headed to the stairs for a final look below.
Dorothy Langner intercepted him at the top of the stairs. “Mr. Bell, I was hoping to see you.”
She extended her gloved hand, and Bell it took it politely. “How are you, Miss Langner?”
“Much better since our conversation. Vindicating my father won’t bring him back, but it is a comfort, and I am very grateful to you.”
“I am hoping that soon we will have definitive proof, but, as I said, I personally have no doubt that your father was murdered, and we will bring his killer to justice.”
“Whom do you suspect?”
“No one I am prepared to discuss. Mr. Van Dorn will keep you appraised.”
“Isaac—may I call you Isaac?”
“All right, if you want.”
“There is something I told you once. I would like to make it clear.”
“If it’s about Mr. Whitmark,” Bell smiled, “be aware he’s headed this way.”
“I will repeat,” she said quietly. “I am not rushing into anything. And he is leaving for San Francisco.”
It struck Bell that a key difference between Marion and Dorothy was how they regarded men. Dorothy wondered whether she could add one to her list of conquests. Whereas Marion Morgan had no doubt she could conquer and therefore wa
s not inclined to bother. It showed in their smiles. Marion’s smile was as engaging as an embrace. Dorothy’s was a dare. But Bell could not ignore her desperate fragility, despite her bold manner. It was almost as if she were putting herself forth and asking to be saved from the loss of her father. And he did not believe that Ted Whitmark was the man to do that.
“Bell, isn’t it?” Whitmark called loudly as he bustled up.
“Isaac Bell.”
He saw tugboats gathering in the river to take charge of the hull when she hit the water. “Excuse me. I’m expected on the ways.”
YAMAMOTO KENTA HAD STUDIED photographs of American warship launchings to choose his costume. He could not disguise that he was Japanese. But the less alien his clothes, the farther he could roam the shipyard and the closer he could approach the distinguished guests. Observing his fellow travelers on the train up from Washington, he was proud to see that he had dressed perfectly for the occasion in a pale blue-and-white seersucker suit and a pea green four-in-hand necktie matched by the color of his straw boater’s hatband.
At the shipyard in Camden, he doffed the boater repeatedly in polite acknowledgment of ladies, important personages, and older gentlemen. The first person he had run into upon arriving at the remarkably up-to-date Camden shipyard was Captain Lowell Falconer, the Hero of Santiago. They had spoken late last fall at the unveiling of a bronze tablet to commemorate Commodore Thomas Tingey, the first commandant of the Washington Navy Yard. Yamamoto had given Falconer the impression that he had retired from the Japanese Navy holding the rank of lieutenant before returning to his first love, Japanese art. Captain Falconer had given him a cursory tour of the arsenal with the notable exception of the Gun Factory.
This morning, when Yamamoto congratulated Falconer on the imminent launch of America’s first dreadnought, Falconer had replied with a wry “almost dreadnought” on the assumption—from one sea dog to another—that a former officer of the Japanese Navy would recognize her shortcomings.
Yamamoto touched his brim once again, this time for a tall, striking blond woman.
Unlike the other American ladies who streamed past with chilly nods for “that puny Asiatic,” as he had heard one murmur to her daughter, she surprised him with a warm smile and the observation that the weather had turned lovely for the launching.
“And for the blooming of the flowers,” said the Japanese spy, who was actually comfortable with American woman, having secretly romanced several high-ranking Washington wives who had convinced themselves that a visiting curator of Asian art must be soulfully artistic as well as exotically Asiatic. At his flirtatious remark, he could expect her to either stalk off or move closer.
He was deeply flattered when she chose the latter.
Her eyes were a startling sea-coral green.
Her manner was forthright. “Neither of us is dressed as a naval officer,” she said. “What brings you here?”
“It is my day off from where I am working at the Smithsonian Institution,” Yamamoto replied. He saw no bulge of a wedding ring under her cotton glove. Probably the daughter of an important official. “A colleague in the Art Department give me his ticket and a letter of introduction that makes me sound far more important than I am. And you?”
“Art? Are you an artist?”
“Merely a curator. A large collection was given to the Institution. They asked me to catalog a small portion of it—a very small portion,” he added with a self-deprecating smile.
“Do you mean the Freer Collection?”
“Yes! You know of it?”
“My father took me to Mr. Freer’s home in Detroit when I was a little girl.”
Yamamoto was not surprised that she had visited the fabulously wealthy manufacturer of railway cars. The social set that swirled around the American’s New Navy included the privileged, the well-connected, and the newly rich. This young lady appeared to be of the former. Certainly, her ease of manner and sense of style set her off from the oft-shrill nouveaux. “What,” he asked her, “do you recall from that visit?”
Her engaging green eyes seemed to explode with light. “What stays in my heart are the colors in Ashiyuki Utamaro’s woodcuts.”
“The theatrical pieces?”
“Yes! The colors were so vivid yet so subtly united. They made his scrolls seem even more remarkable.”
“His scrolls?”
“The simple black on white of his calligraphy was so . . . so—what is the word—clear, as if to imply that color was actually unessential.”
“But Ashiyuki Utamaro made no scrolls.”
Her smile faded. “Do I misrecall?” She gave a little laugh, an uncomfortable sound that alerted Yamamoto Kenta that all was not well here. “I was only ten years old,” she said hurriedly. “But I’m certain I remember—no, I guess I’m wrong. Aren’t I the silly one. I’m terribly embarrassed. I must look like a complete ninny to you.”
“Not at all,” Yamamoto replied smoothly while glancing about surreptitiously to see who on the crowded platform was watching them. Nobody he could see. His mind was racing. Had she tried to trick him into revealing gaps in his hastily acquired knowledge of art? Or had she made a genuine mistake? Thank the gods that he had known that Ashiyuki Utamaro had presided over a large printshop and had not been the monastic sort of artist who toiled alone with a few brushes, ink, and rice paper.
She was looking about as if desperate for an excuse to break away. “I’m afraid I must go,” she said. “I’m meeting a friend.”
Yamamoto tipped his boater. But she surprised him again. Instead of immediately fleeing, she extended her long, slender cotton-gloved hand, and said, “We’ve not been introduced. I enjoyed talking with you. I am Marion Morgan.”
Yamamoto bowed, thoroughly confused by her openness. Perhaps he was paranoid. “Yamamoto Kenta,” he said, shaking her hand. “At your service, Miss Morgan. If you ever visit the Smithsonian, please ask for me.”
“Oh, I will,” she said, and strolled away.
The puzzled Japanese spy watched Marion Morgan sail sleek as a cruiser through a billowing sea of flowered hats. Her course converged with that of a woman in a scarlet hat heaped with silk roses. Their brims angled left and right, forming an arch under which they touched cheeks.
Yamamoto felt his jaw go slack. He recognized the woman who greeted Marion Morgan as the mistress of a treacherous French Navy captain who would sell his own mother for a peek at the plans of a hydraulic gyro engine. He felt a strong urge to remove his boater and scratch his head. Was it coincidence that Marion Morgan knew Dominique Duvall? Or was the beautiful American spying for the perfidious French?
Before he could ponder further, he had to doff his boater to a beautiful lady dressed head to toe in black.
“May I offer my condolences?” he asked Dorothy Langner, whom he had met at the unveiling of the bronze tablet at the Washington Navy Yard shortly before he murdered her father.
A MASTER CARPENTER in blue-striped overalls served as Isaac Bell’s guide when he made his final inspection under the hull. They walked its length twice, up one side and down the other.
The last of the wooden shores bracing the ship had been removed, as had the poppets—the long timbers holding her bow and her stern. Where there had been a dense forest of lumber was a clear view alongside the cradle from front to back. All that remained leaning against the ship were temporary tumbler shores—heavy timbers designed to fall away as she began to slide down the flat rails, which were thickly greased with yellow tallow.
Nearly every keel block supporting the vessel had been removed. The final blocks were assembled from four triangles bolted into single wooden cubes. Carpenters disassembled them by unscrewing the bolts that held them together. As the triangles fell apart, the battleship settled harder on the cradle. Swiftly, they unbolted the bilge blocks, the last holding her, and now Michigan’s full weight came on the cradle with an audible sighing of minutely shifting plates and rivets.
“All that’s holding h
er now are the triggers,” the carpenter told Bell. “Yank them, and off she goes.”
“Do you see anything amiss?” the detective asked.
The carpenter stuck his thumbs in his overalls and peered around with a sharp eye. Foremen were herding workmen off the ways and out of the shed. With the hammering of the wedges finally stopped it was eerily quiet. Bell heard the tugs hooting signals on the river and the murmur of the expectant throng above him on the platform.
“Everything looks right as rain, Mr. Bell.”
“Are you sure?”
“All they’ve got to do now is bust that bottle.”
“Who is that man with the wedge ram?” Bell pointed at a man who abruptly appeared carrying a long pole over his shoulder.
“That is a mighty brave fellow getting paid extra to poke the trigger if it jams.”
“Do you know him?”
“Bill Strong. My wife’s brother’s nephew by marriage.”
A steam whistle blew a long, sonorous blast. “We ought to get out of here, Mr. Bell. There’ll be tons of junk falling off her when she moves. If it happens to brain us, folks will say she’s an unlucky ship—‘launched in blood.’ ”
They retreated toward the stairs that led up to the platform. As they parted at the juncture where the carpenter would join his mates on the riverbank and Bell would continue up to the christening, the tall detective took one last look at the ways, the cradle, and the dull red hull. At the bottom of the ways, where the rails dipped into the water, massive iron chains were heaped in horseshoe loops. Attached to the ship by drag cables, the chains would help slow her as she slid into the water.